Materialism brought to the test of reason : and refuted by a consideration of the structure of the body and the faculties of the mind / by the Rev. Richard Hart.

  • Hart, Richard, -1846.
Date:
1835
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Materialism brought to the test of reason : and refuted by a consideration of the structure of the body and the faculties of the mind / by the Rev. Richard Hart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    a few days before his death, to the astonishment of his friends, his faculties suddenly returned, and he remembered every thing and every body.* Lucid intervals before death are, however, not uncommon. § V.—Death. Annihilated by death,And he also says,f With the decline of organization the mind decays; itbecomes decrepit with the body, and both are at the same time extinguished by deaths—Be it remembered that these are the expressions of a man who most earnestly denies that his opinions are at all calculated to weaken the restraints of morality or reli- gion and who, in reply to the charge of impiety, exclaims with indignation, I need not remind you that such an accusation is repelled by every appearance, every probabi- lity, and every presumption.”! Assertion without proof is at all times degrading, and far beneath the dignity of philoso- phical investigation ; Mr. Lawrence’s assumption is, how- ever, not merely gratuitous, but is quite contrary to analogy, the only safe guide in the absence of direct evidence. Human experience does not furnish a single instance of ANNIHILATION, nor has the minutest particle of matter ceased to exist from the creation to the present day. The vegetable world, on the other hand, supplies us with nume- rous analogies tending to prove that death is not the termi- nation of existence ; for ‘‘ all things,” says Bishop Pearson, ‘^are repaired by corrupting, are preserved by perishing, and revived by dying; and can we think that man, the lord * See life of Macklin. i Lawrence, p. 101. X As Mr. Lawrence rejects the divine authority of the Bible, this amounts to a positive denial of a future state, since natural religion furnishes us with no proofs of a resurrection. The infidel tendency of his work is clear from a variety of passages ; a few choice specimens of which I shall now present to the reader. In p. 90, he exults in the prospect of the “ de- struction of all creeds and articles of faith.” In p. 230, he says, “ To the grounds of doubt respecting inspiration, which arise from the examination of the various narratives j from knowledge of the original, and other oriental languages; and from the irreconcilable opposition between the passions and sentiments ascribed to the Deity by Moses, and that religion of peace and love unfolded by the Evangelists; I have only to add, that the represen- tations of all animals being brought before Adam in the first instance, and subsequently of their being all collected in the ark, are zoologically impossi- ble.” He had said in the preceding paragraph, “ Moreover, the entire, or even partial inspiration of the various writings contained in thes.01d Tes- tament, has been, and is doubted by many persons, including learned divines, and distinguished oriental and biblical scholars.” Who these “ learned Thebans” may have been, I am really at a loss to understand, unless he alludes to the Reverend Robert Taylor. § Pp. 5, 7,8.